THE Umbrian art, of which we have attempted to trace the origin, has not hitherto met with the notice which it merits. Lanzi allowed it no separate place among the fourteen schools under which he has arranged Italian painting, and, by scattering its most important names, has lost sight of certain characteristics which, rather than any common education, link its masters together. Nor was this omission wonderful, for the Umbrian painters and their works were dispersed over many towns and villages, none of which could be considered the head-quarters of a school, and to visit these distant localities would have been a task of difficulty and disappointment. The patronage of princes and communities seems to have been sparingly bestowed in that mountain-land. Assisi, adorned by many Florentine strangers, was mother rather than nurse of its native art, and other religious houses wanted the means or the spirit to follow her brilliant example. Hence the comparatively few opportunities afforded to the Christian painters of Umbria of executing great works in fresco, the peculiar vehicle of pictorial grandeur; and alas! of these few, a considerable proportion has been lost to us under the barbarism of whitewash.[122] The revival of feeling for religious art, of late commenced by the Germans, and their persevering zeal in illustrating its neglected monuments, have established the existence of an Umbrian school in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but its history remains to be written.[*123] The task would carry us too far from the leading subject of these volumes, yet we shall endeavour in a few pages to sketch its development, from the dreamy anchorites whose rude pencils embodied the visions of their favourite St. Francis, to Raffaele, whose high mission it was to perfect devotional painting,[*124] apart from the alloy of human passions, and to withstand for a time that influx of pagan and naturalist corruptions, which after his premature death overwhelmed it.

Two fanes were commenced in the thirteenth century near the Tiber, which became conspicuous as shrines equally of Christian devotion and Christian art. The cathedral of Orvieto for two hundred years attracted from all parts of Italy many of the best artificers in sculpture and painting, some of whom, arriving from Umbria, carried back new inspirations to their homes. The sanctuary of St. Francis, at Assisi, coeval with the dawn of Italian art, borrowed its earliest embellishments from Tuscany,[*125] where Giotto and his followers were ingrafting on design two novel ingredients—dramatic composition and allegorical allusion. The former of these elements distinguished the Florentine from contemporary schools, and carried it beyond them in variety and effect, preparing a way for the pictorial power which Raffaele and Michael Angelo perfected. To the inspirations of Dante it owed the latter element, and to the enthusiastic though tardy admiration which his fellow-citizens indulged for his wildly poetical mysticism, may be ascribed the abiding impress of a tendency which not only authorised but encouraged new and varied combinations. The rigid outlines, monotonous conventional movements, and soulless countenances of Byzantium gradually were mellowed into life and beauty; but it is curious to observe how much sooner genius caught the spirit than the form,—how it succeeded in embodying expression long before it could master the more technical difficulties of design, action, and shadow. The credit claimed for Giotto of introducing physiognomical expression is, however, only partially true. Compared with the Greek works, or even with those of his immediate antecedents, Cimabue, Guido, and Margaritone, his heads, indeed, beam with animated intelligence, and feel the movement which he first communicated to his groups. Yet not less was the still and unimpassioned, but deep-seated emotion which the Umbrian painters embodied in their miniatures and panels, an improvement upon the lifeless and angular mechanism of the Byzantine artificers, although these very opposite qualities are generally condemned to the same category of contemptible feebleness by our pretended connoisseurs, glibly discussing masters whose real works they never saw, or are unable from ignorance and prejudice to appreciate. Such a state of art could not, however, remain wedded to a few fixed types. It was inherently one of transition, and necessarily led to a gradual abandonment of the Giottist manner of representation, while it enlarged the principles of composition introduced by Giotto. Beato Angelico, the first Florentine who successfully departed from that style, reawakening the old religious spirit, and embodying in it forms of purity never before or since attained, forsook not wholly the Dantesque spirit. His passing influence yielded to a manner more in unison with the times, which was formed and nearly perfected by Masaccio; but still Dante was not left behind. Luca Signorelli, issuing from his Umbrian mountains and his Umbrian master, imbibed at Florence the lofty images of "the bard of hell," and energetically reproduced them in the duomo of Orvieto, in startling contrast with the works of Angelico, and other devoted masters, who had previously decorated that museum of art.

There, too, had been wrought some choice productions of the Pisan sculptors,[*126] but their tendency to clothe nature in the forms of antique design met with little sympathy, and no imitation, from students whose minds were preoccupied by tales of St. Francis, and thus it is unnecessary here to notice them further. The Sienese school is in an entirely different category. Without encumbering ourselves at present by the definitions and distinctions of German Æsthetic criticism, we shall merely remark that the painters of Siena, from Guido until late in the fifteenth century, never lost sight of that sentimental devotion which we have already described as the soul of Christian art, and which so curiously pervades the statutes of their guild formerly quoted. The cathedral of Orvieto was founded in 1290 by a Sienese architect, who, as we may well suppose, brought some of his countrymen to assist in its embellishment, and to infuse these principles among the native students, who, from assistants, became master-artificers of its decorations. Nor was this the only link which connected Sienese art with the confines of Umbria. The scattered townships in the Val di Chiana preserve in their remaining early altar-panels clear evidence that these were supplied from Siena; and Taddeo Bartolo, repairing thence in 1403 to Perugia, and perhaps to Assisi, left proofs that the bland sentimentalism of his native school might be united with a tranquil majesty, to which the Giottists had scarcely attained.[*127]

Having thus briefly touched upon foreign influences which told on the pictorial character of Umbria, we are prepared to consider the most remarkable artificers whom it has produced, especially in the duchy of Urbino. Of these the first place is due on many accounts to Oderigi da Gubbio,[*128] for, besides his claim to be founder of the schools of Gubbio and Bologna, he is celebrated among the most excellent miniaturists of his time by Dante, who has placed him in purgatory, a sentence justly deemed by Ticozzi somewhat severe for "the head and front of his offending," that of over-zeal in his art.

Baldinucci has written a life of this master, chiefly in confirmation of his theory that all modern painting was produced from the personal influence of Cimabue, a dogma combated by Lanzi. His death is placed in 1299, which would make him contemporary with that Florentine artificer, and Vasari calls him the friend of Giotto, who was much his junior. The preservation of his name is perhaps chiefly owing to Dante's notice, though the antiquaries of Gubbio now reject the lapidary inscription which claims for the latter a residence in their town. There is in truth a sad deficiency of facts regarding Oderigi, and no work from his hand being now known, speculation as to his style would be useless.[130] That the painters connected with Gubbio in the following generation may have been formed under his instructions, is however a conjecture fairly admissible.

Of these Cecco and Puccio were employed, probably as mosaicists, in 1321, upon the cathedral of Orvieto, whence they may have brought back to Umbria enlarged principles of art. But, abandoning conjectural grounds, let us notice the earliest Eugubinean painter whose works have survived to our own time. Guido Palmerucci is said to have been born about the time of Oderigi's death, while others consider him as his pupil. Assuredly the observation of Lanzi, which appears to rank him with the Giottists, is not borne out by the frescoes in his native town attributed to him, for these have nothing of the dramatic action which Giotto introduced, and their details, as well as their general manner, resemble colossal miniatures. This is especially the case in a figure of S. Antonio, the only remains of some mural paintings which covered the exterior of a chapel[*131] belonging to the college of painters, founded at Gubbio in the thirteenth century. The character of the saint is grand, the attitude solemn, the expression spiritualised; and an Ecce Homo still in the Church of S. Maria Nuova there, exhibits a similar style. Among the few fragments of mouldering frescoes to be seen at Gubbio, I have found no others ascribed to Palmerucci, but Passavant tells us he wrought in the town-hall about 1345. At Cagli two interesting frescoes in the church of S. Francesco have been lately brought to light from behind a great altar picture, and successfully moved to the adjoining wall. They represent two miracles of St. Anthony of Padua, and I am inclined to ascribe them to Palmerucci, or some able contemporary. The actors and bystanders are equally remarkable for heads of staid devout composure, which under Giottesque treatment would have been in a far higher degree animated and dramatic. In the beautiful art of pictorial glass, Gubbio has also a notable name in Angioletto, who embellished the chapel-window of St. Louis at Assisi, and enriched the cathedrals of Orvieto and Siena with his gem-like decorations.

To the same city belongs the little we know of the Nelli family,[*132] yet that little is well calculated to call forth our regrets for their lost works. Martino Nelli was a junior contemporary of Palmerucci. In his fresco over the gate of S. Antonio, representing the Madonna enthroned, with elaborate architectural accessories, there may be traced an approach to the mild devotional abstraction with which the purist Christian artists tempered the

"Maternal lady with the virgin grace."

But in a smaller work of his son Ottaviano, the church of S. Maria Nuova possesses the very finest existing specimen of the Umbrian school, exempt from injury or restoration. The lovely and saint-like Madonna, the seraphic choir that forms a glory around her, the Almighty crowning the "highly favoured among women," have perhaps never been equalled among the happiest embodyings of devotional genius; nor are the rich colouring, the accessory saints, and the portraits of the Peroli family, who, in 1403, commissioned this grand work, inferior in merit. He is supposed to have been born about 1375, and, after executing in Assisi, Urbino, and other circumjacent towns, works long perished, to have died in 1444. Of the mural paintings by his brother Tomaso, in S. Domenico and under the Piazzone of his native town, it is impossible to say more than that whatever of the family inspiration may have guided his pencil has been nearly obscured by cruel restorations.

Among the pupils of Ottaviano,

about Gubbio, are Pitali, Domenico di Cecchi, and Bernardino di Nanni: to these may be added Giacomo Bedi, a name that has escaped the historians of Italian art, by whom were painted in the church of S. Agostino four scenes in the life of the saint, which retain a freshness and force of colour equal to any productions of the age. With these the influence of Oderigi seems to have become extinct in his native town, before the close of the fifteenth century, long ere which it had, however, been transported elsewhere by Gentile da Fabriano, who, emerging from his Apennine home, reproduced in Florence and in Rome the characteristics of that master, amid universal applause, and, carrying them to Venice, founded there the religious feeling which the Bellini, Vivarini, and Cima di Conegliano sustained, imparting at the same time that taste for luxuriant colouring which Titian brought to perfection. But, ere we turn to the school of Fabriano, we may here translate from the original quaint Italian a letter from Ottaviano, illustrative of the early patronage of art by the Montefeltrian family. No trace of the works there mentioned now remains.[133]

In a sketch having no pretensions to a history, we need not pause upon names now known only from old records, and must keep strictly to those whose genius has left a decided impress upon the development of art in Umbria. We therefore pass over artificers belonging to various communities along the Apennines who appear on the rolls of Orvieto, including several from Fabriano. About the middle of the fourteenth century, the latter town boasted an Allegretto Nuzio, some of whose altar-panels may still be traced in La Marca, embodying a sentimentalism of expression, combined with a richness in the accessories, which remind one strongly of the finest productions of Memmi, and lead us to suspect an infusion of the Sienese style.[*135] But the renown of Allegretto rests more on that of his pupil Gentile, whom we have already named as the first who carried the characteristics and fame of the Umbrian manner beyond the seclusion of its highland cradle.

Francesco di Gentile was born at Fabriano about 1370, and, after maturely studying all that was best there and at Gubbio, he set forth to enlarge his field of observation. Florence was perhaps his first point of attraction, for nowhere else could he see such beautiful art. But resisting those seductions which the vast compositions of the Gaddi, Orcagna, and other Giottists held out to an ardent and youthful ambition, he preserved in their purity the holy inspirations of the fatherland, and meeting little sympathy for these among the fraternity of St. Luke, he sought for himself a more suitable companionship in the cloister of S. Domenico. There it was his good fortune to discover a man whose rare character realised those transcendental qualities, of which we read in the saintly legends of pristine times, without regarding them as real ingredients in human character.

Fra Giovanni da Fiesole had spent the years which other youths wasted on stormy pleasures in acquiring the art of miniature painting, and its sacred representations took such hold of his feelings, that, abjuring the world, he assumed the habit of St. Dominic. But finding that his art, far from interfering with the holy sentiments which a tender conscience considered as inseparable from his new profession, tended directly to spiritualise them, the neophyte continued to exercise it; and upon settling himself in the convent of S. Marco, he extended his style to fresco, ever adhering to those pure forms of celestial bliss which no one before or since has equalled. It is related of him that, regarding his painting in the light of a God-gift, he never sat down to exercise it without offering up orisons for divine influence, nor did he assume his palette until he felt these answered by a glow of holy inspiration. His pencil thus literally embodied the language of prayer; his compositions were the result of long contemplation on mystic revelations; his Madonnas borrowed their sweet and sinless expression from ecstatic visions; the passion of our Saviour was conceived by him in tearful penitence, and executed with sobs and sighs. Deeming the forms he thus predicted to proceed from supernatural dictation, he never would alter or retouch them; and though his works are generally brought to the highest attainable finish, the impress of their first conception remains unchanged. To the unimaginative materialism of the present day, these sentences may seem idle absurdities, but they illustrate the character of Fra Giovanni, and no painter ever so thoroughly instilled his character into his works. Those who have not had the good fortune to see any of these cannot form an idea of the infantine simplicity, the immaculate countenances, the unimpassioned pathos apparent in his figures, nor of the transparent delicacy of his flesh-tints, and the gay and cheerful colouring which he introduces into the details, without injury to the angelic grace of the whole. These qualities procured for their author the epithet of Angelico; his personal virtues were acknowledged by an offer of the see of Fiesole, which his humility declined and by the posthumous honour of beatification; his paintings, to borrow the words of Vasari, elevated the utmost perfection to the ideal of art, by improving without abandoning its original type; and, in the characteristic language of Michael Angelo, he must have studied in heaven the faces which he depicted on earth.[136]

Such was the instructor with whom, although his junior, Gentile thought it no disparagement to place himself,[*137] and his works testify to his having caught much of the spirit as well as the elaborate finish of his master. But whilst Angelico passed his time in decorating the cells of his convent with frescoes, whose holy beauties have confirmed the faith and purified the secret contemplations of many a recluse, his pupil returned to the world, to follow up a successful career. Called to Orvieto about 1423, he there painted two altars, which, though not his best works, are peculiarly interesting in contrast with the grand productions which at a later period his master executed for that cathedral.[*138] In the registers of the fabric, he is, in 1425, designated as "master of the masters"; and the fame which he thus acquired brought him successive commissions at Florence and Siena, after which he was extensively employed in enriching the cities of Umbria and La Marca with works of which no trace now exists.[*139] Among these towns were Gubbio and Urbino; but still more interesting to our immediate subject,—the development of art under the Feltrian dukes,—is the altar-piece executed by him at Romita, near Fabriano, and now plundered and scattered by the French, part of which adorns the Brera Gallery at Milan. The Madonna is crowned by her Son, the Dove fluttering between them, the Father rising pyramidally behind, amid a choir of cherubim; below, in the empyrean void, is an arch spanning the sun and moon, on which stand eight angels, making melody of praise on various instruments. So extended was the reputation of this work, that Raffaele is believed to have been attracted thither in his youth, to imbibe that devotional sentiment which he was destined to advance to its culminating point of excellence. Another fountain of his early inspiration was the famous, but now defaced, Madonna of Forano, near Osimo, whose angelic beauty is described as well-fitted to have left an indelible charm upon minds less pure and enthusiastic than his. On the mere evidence of its ecstatic loveliness, it was generally ascribed to Beato Angelico; but as there is no account of the Frate having visited La Marca, it may probably have been produced by Gentile, when his return to his native mountains had freed him for a season from mundane impressions, and had restored him to the sanctifying influence of its legendary abstractions.

From thence he proceeded to Venice, where many of his most brilliant performances were achieved; but these, too, are nearly all lost to us. There, in contact with the busy world, and sharing its honours, distracted, it may be, by the bright tints and smiling landscapes just then imported from northern lands, his devotional inspirations were gradually tinged by naturalism. His principal commission was a fresco of the naval victories of the Republic; and I have seen a small picture by him of the rape of the Sabines, whose feeble paganism belongs, no doubt, to his later years, and sadly proves how essential were these inspirations to his success. At Venice he opened a school, which enjoyed high reputation, and which probably numbered among its pupils Pisanello, the Vivarini, and Bellini, although chronology throws a doubt upon some of Vasari's assertions as to this point. A new field of glory opened before Gentile, when invited by Eugene IV. to decorate with mural paintings the since rebuilt church of the Lateran, where he painted four prophets in chiaroscuro, and placed below them the life of the Baptist,—works unfinished at his death in 1450, and now destroyed, but which Michael Angelo, little qualified as he was to appreciate the delicacies of religious art, characterised as worthy the gentle name of their author.

On quitting the cloister of S. Marco, Gentile had carried with him a portion of the devotional feeling which hung around the studio of Fra Giovanni, and along with it much of the taste for rich ornaments, for gold and brocades, for fruit and flowers, in which both of his instructors delighted. But whilst Allegretto and Angelico kept such foreign aids in subservience to the predominating sentiment of their works, their pupil caught from the great world, in which he freely mingled with credit and applause, an admiration of mundane grandeur which, in his later compositions, is singularly combined with the spirit of religious art. His immaculate Madonnas are worshipped less by angelic choirs of cherubim and seraphim, than by the great ones of the earth in their trappings of dignity; and of all sacred themes, the Epiphany, or adoration of the Magi kings at the stable of Bethlehem, was his choice. Such is the magnificent altar-panel which he wrought in 1423, for the church of the S. TrinitÀ at Florence, now one of the most precious monuments in the Belle Arti there. Still more gorgeous is his crowded composition painted for the Zeni of Venice; but there he has contaminated the purist spirit of Christian painting, for in the suite of the eastern kings is portrayed the patron of the picture, with all the gallant company who attended his embassy from the Republic to Usamkassan, sovereign of Persia. The unequalled variety of groups, the elaborate splendour of oriental costumes, the crowd of horsemen in contrasted attitudes, the lavish adoption of gold, form a dazzling but harmonious whole, which has scarcely any parallel in painting. It is not improbable that this and similar works, besides introducing a new element into the semi-Byzantine practice of the Venetian school, may have spread to Albert Durer and other Germans, who long after visited that

"Ruler of the waters and their powers,"

an influence carried by them to Nuremberg and Cologne, to enrich the already gaudy tendencies of ultramontane taste. But Gentile da Fabriano possesses another claim upon the student of early painting, hitherto inadequately noticed. To the lessons of his father, a learned mathematician, he may have owed the linear perspective which, in many of his productions, anticipated the improvements of Piero della Francesca. This is observable in the Zeno picture, and still more in a small predella in my possession, where his favourite theme, the Epiphany, is completed by a background accurately laid out in lines and compartments, such as we see in the Dutch gardens of the seventeenth century. But to this question we must return.

Among the artists who maintained in Umbria the influences left by Ottaviano and Gentile, two were of special merit, NicolÒ Alunno, of Foligno, and Benedetto Bonfigli, of Perugia. Their works have been often confounded, but with the latter only have we to do, for, besides being nearer to Gentile both in age and in manner, he is generally considered as the master of Pietro Perugino,[*140] and thus forms a link in the artistic chain which we are endeavouring to establish, through the best Umbrian painters, from Oderigi of Gubbio to Raffaele of Urbino. Of Bonfigli there are several interesting and well-preserved specimens in his native town, dated about 1466, but it must be owned that none of the earliest known works of Perugino exhibit much trace of his style. These, however, are all supposed posterior to Pietro's first visit to Florence, where his ideas must have undergone vast development from the examples of Masaccio and other masters, who there formed a galaxy of talent about the middle of the fifteenth century.[*141] In that city he formed his early friendship with Leonardo da Vinci, which Sanzi says was cemented by parity of age as of affection; and it is singular how little such sympathy can be traced in their genius or works. When, on the other hand, we contrast the placid features which Vannucci uniformly limned, rarely ruffled by sorrow, never clouded by sin, with the furious mien and restless energy of Michael Angelo's creations, we may well credit Vasari's story of their quarrel, and can account for the scrimp justice accorded to the painter of CittÀ della Pieve by his Florentine biographer. They pretend not, indeed, to the bold character of Signorelli, nor even to the severity of Mantegna, or Piero della Francesca; but those who criticise them as stiff, timid, and monotonous, in contrast with the performances of the next generation, would arrive at more just conclusions did they include in the comparison those painters who had preceded him, and whose example was his early guide.

Let us turn to Urbino. Lanzi tells us that Giotto, Gentile da Fabriano, and their respective followers, left works in that little capital; where Pungileone has shown that Ottaviano Nelli exercised his profession from 1428 to 1433, and Paolo Uccello of Florence in 1468, with other artists detected by the same zealous antiquary. Of such works, however, nothing can now be traced. The oldest paintings I could discover there were those in the oratory of St. John Baptist by Lorenzo and Giacomo di San Severino, Lanzi's blunders regarding whom have been corrected by the Marchese Ricci. The principal composition is the Crucifixion, with a dramatic action influenced by Giottesque feeling: the three other walls seem to have been occupied by a history of the titular saint, two passages of which are almost destroyed. Those remaining, though not exempt from retouching, are sufficiently preserved to enable us to detect a masterly and novel arrangement, and a character of devotion more consistent with the Umbrian manner, though marred by hard colouring. The date 1416 is added to the painter's epigraph. We learn from an old chronicle that Antonio da Ferrara painted the Montefeltro chapel in the church of S. Francesco in 1430, a fact scarcely reconcileable with Vasari's assertion that he was a pupil of Angelo Gaddi. He is also said to have executed an ancona for the church of S. Bernardino, portions of which may probably be recognised in some figures still in the sacristy. In that of S. Francesco at Mercatello, among several memorials of a similar period, are {1843} two frescoes characterised by grand design, ample draperies, and full colouring, but deficient in delicacy. The lunette of the marriage of St. Catherine outside the door is somewhat later, and very superior, and may be from the pencil of Pietro della Francesca. Of none of these works, nor of two good panel pictures in the same church, have I been able to find any account. In the hospital of S. Angelo in Vado is a panel altar picture in utter ruin, which has possessed surpassing beauty. The martyrdom of St. Sebastian is there powerfully conceived, and executed with the finest feeling. The inscription seems to have been, Hieronymus Nardia Vicentis fecit; the date probably towards the close of the fifteenth century. Such is the beggarly account we have to offer of early art in the country of Raffaele, and thus might we dismiss the speculations of those who would fondly trace its primary influences on his dawning genius.

But though time and whitewash have combined to narrow this branch of our inquiry, we must not overlook an artist who ranks high among the reformers of painting, and upon whom the patronage of Duke Federigo was specially lavished. His family name has not come down to us, but he is generally known by the matronymic of Piero della Francesca, from the Christian name of his mother, though sometimes designed Pietro del Borgo, or Il Borghese, from Borgo S. Sepolcro, his native town. His life has unfortunately been left in much obscurity by his only biographer Vasari, who might have well bestowed somewhat more pains upon the career of one born in a neighbouring town, who left his finest works at Arezzo, and whose merits he is more inclined to magnify than to slight. The loose assertions of this author have been adopted by most succeeding writers, without addition and with little investigation; but of the school in which Pietro acquired the rudiments of his art, and of the earlier period of his career, we remain still uninformed, though his age and Apennine origin favour the conjecture that he may have imbibed his first lessons from works of Ottaviano Nelli the contemporary Umbrian master.[*142] Beyond question two very different manners appear in the productions of his pencil; the first, crudely composed and laboriously frittered into detail, with much of the contracted ideas and bright tinting of the old miniaturists; the second, broad and masterly in conception, and executed with a flowing pencil, though retaining an elaborate finish. Both styles are united in a little picture at Urbino, which we shall presently describe, the Flagellation being in the earlier, the three portraits in the larger manner. If born, as Vasari incorrectly states, in the last years of the fourteenth century,[*143] Piero, instead of being patronised by Guidobaldo I., must have reached at least eighty-four in that Duke's time; indeed, he would have been past middle life ere Federigo, whom, as we shall presently see, he calls his chief patron, succeeded to that state in 1443. "Guidobaldo Feltro" may, however, probably be a mistake of Vasari for Count Guidantonio, in which case a solution would be afforded for several of his manifold contradictions; and at that court, if not in earlier life, our artist might have been the associate or pupil of Nelli. Passing over works now lost which del Borgo is stated on the same authority to have executed at Pesaro, Ferrara, Ancona, and Loreto, we find him called by Nicholas V. to Rome, where his frescoes appear to have been destroyed in the many alterations made on the Vatican Palace before that century closed.

Piero della Francesca is also asserted by Vasari to have been one of the most profound mathematicians of his day, and to have improved perspective and the management of light by an adaptation of geometrical principles to painting. The latter of these opinions has been received, and constitutes the highest claim of this master upon the historians of art. The point has not as yet been illustrated by any writer competent to pronounce with accuracy upon such pretensions,[*144] but the merit of having shown how to ameliorate perspective, especially in architectural design, is generally granted to Piero. Pascoli and others have regarded him as its father. Lanzi thinks him the first who revived the ancient Greek notion of rendering geometry subject to painting in general, although Brunelleschi, Paolo Uccelli, and others had already applied the same principles with less science to architectural details; and he combats the priority in these respects asserted by Lomazzo for Foppa of Brescia. The claims of Leon Battista Alberti,[*145] the architect, seem to have been settled by Vasari's opinion that distance was better described by his pen than delineated by his pencil. The same author enlists our sympathy in favour of Il Borghese, representing him as defrauded of his fame by an unscrupulous scholar, Fra Luca Pacioli, a Franciscan, who, after learning from him mathematics, availed himself of his instructor's after blindness to plagiarise his manuscripts, and eventually published them as his own.[*146] Into this controverted matter we need not enter, further than to pronounce with Tiraboschi, Rosini, and Gaye a verdict of not proven, and to observe that the celebrity attained by the friar's scientific works ought to reflect some merit upon his instructor. Yet justice to both parties requires us to extract the generous testimony volunteered to the painter by his pupil, in dedicating to Duke Guidobaldo his Summa de Arithmetica, Geometria, &c.: "Perspective, if closely looked into, would certainly be nothing without the aid of geometry, as has been fully demonstrated by Pietro di Franceschi, our contemporary, and the prince of modern painting. During his assiduous service in your Excellency's family, he composed his short treatise on the art of painting and the power of linear perspective, which is now deservedly placed in your library, rich with books in every branch." These, surely, are not the words of a literary pirate; indeed, Vasari's whole account is vague and confused. After telling us that Pacioli had appropriated the matter of Piero's many MSS., then existing at Borgo San Sepolcro, he adds that most of his writings were deposited in the Urbino library, where it is obvious that neither he nor those who have repeated his assertions ever sought them. After every possible search, I have reason to believe that that library now contains but two treatises by Il Borghese, nor have I found any evidence of others having ever been there. Both are in Latin, and are fairly transcribed on vellum in contemporary hands, with diagrams upon the margin.[147] The former is entitled De Perspectiva, but the subject is, in fact, Light,[*148] and its effect upon objects and colours. In place of a general title, it sets out with a dictum that "light is to philosophical inquiry what demonstrative certainty is to mathematics." The volume, bearing the arms and initials of Duke Federigo, must have been written for his library: though anonymous, it is clearly the work referred to in a dedication which we shall presently quote, the only other MS. upon perspective in the collection being that by Vitellioni (No. 265).

The other volume has for title Petri Pictoris Burgensis de Quinque Corporibus Regularibus. The five bodies discussed in it are, the triangle of four bases, the cube with six faces, the octagon with eight faces and as many triangles, the duodecahedron with twelve faces and as many pentagons, the icosahedron with twenty faces and as many triangles. We shall extract from the dedication to Guidobaldo I. a passage relating to the essay and its author: "And as my works owe whatever illustration they possess solely to the brilliant star of your excellent father, the most bright and dazzling orb of our age, it seemed not unbecoming that I should dedicate to your Majesty this little work, on the five regular bodies in mathematics, which I have composed, that, in this extreme fraction of my age, my mind might not become torpidly inactive. Thus may your splendour reflect a light upon its obscurity: and your Highness will not spurn these feeble and worthless fruits, gathered from a field now left fallow, and nearly exhausted by age, from which your distinguished father has drawn its better produce; but will place this in some corner, as a humble handmaid to the numberless books of your own and his copious library, near our other treatise on Perspective, which we wrote in former years. For it is usual to admit, at the most luxurious and festive banquets, fruits culled by a rude and unpolished peasant. Indeed, its novelty may ensure its proving not unpleasing; for though the subject was known from Euclid and other geometers, it is now [first] applied by me to arithmetical science. At all events, it will be a token and memorial of my long-cherished attachment and continual devotion to yourself and your illustrious house."

This must have been written after 1482, when, if Vasari's dates be accurate, Piero was at least eighty-four years old, and had been blind during five lustres; a circumstance which, though not entirely inconsistent with his cultivation of the exact sciences, would occasion an impediment not likely to be passed over by him, when pleading as an apology the disabilities of age. The researches of AbbÉ Pungeleoni have, however, established that no such calamity had befallen our painter in 1469, when he was the guest of Giovanni Sanzi, at Urbino; and it is no way referred to in Pacioli's dedication, written in 1494, while he was still alive. Altogether, it may be questioned whether that alleged bereavement was not one of Vasari's many inaccuracies, the most valuable portion of whose account of this master is a notice of the frescoes executed by him in the choir of S. Francesco, at Arezzo, wherein are depicted the Discovery and Exaltation of the true Cross, and the Vision and Victory of Constantine. These noble works, uniting a happy application of his favourite studies on perspective and light, with a grandeur and movement unknown to most of his compositions, are now mere wrecks,[*149] in which, however, may be traced not a few ideas subsequently appropriated by more celebrated artists. The most remarkable of them is the Vision, the original drawing for which has been published by Mr. Young Ottley. In the play of light and the management of chiaroscuro, there is far more profound study than was usual among his contemporaries, and in no other work of so early a date have these been as successfully treated. By a not very intelligible juxtaposition, the companion compartment is occupied by an Annunciation, grave, solemn, almost severe, as are most of his later paintings. The lowest and largest space on either side of the choir, is filled by the Battle, whilst Constantine prays in a corner, surrounded by his courtiers. These may have suggested to Raffaele the same subject for the Stanze, but they afford no details calculated to animate his pencil. Soldiers, horses, and banners are, indeed, mingled together with a bustle and energy of action hitherto unattempted; but the effect is neutralised by an all-prevailing confusion, and by a want of groups or episodes to concentrate the spectator's scattered interest or admiration. The design is generally good; the modelling and character of the heads are, as usual, excellent; the costumes are richly varied; and the horses remind us, by their action, of Pisano's pictures and medals. If it be true that Raffaele has repeated some of the noble ideas here freely lavished, it seems more probable that, in his Liberation of St. Peter, he wished to excel the tent scene, than that he bore in mind the crowded men-at-arms when composing the Victory of Constantine. The elements have conspired against this chef-d'oeuvre of Pietro del Borgo. Its walls were frightfully riven during last century by an earthquake, and its menacing cracks have since been shaken by thunderbolts. Although the repairs have been judiciously limited to securing the plaster, without attempting any restoration of the frescoes, several compartments are almost wholly defaced. Some female groups, however, remain, which yield to nothing that Masaccio has left for the plaudits of posterity.

In much better preservation is a hitherto unnoticed painting on the wall of a chapel in the cathedral of Rimini, dated 1448. It represents Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, whom we have so often named in the first volume of this work, kneeling in prayer before his patron saint, Sigismondo, king of Hungary. The wide and once beautifully graduated landscape has unfortunately suffered; but the favourite dog,[*150] crouching behind, is evidently as striking a likeness as his master, whose dignified character and serious pose give to what is but a laboriously accurate portrait, the spiritualised grandeur of a noble devotional composition. It embodies the verity of nature, exempt from the vulgarity of naturalism.

We have to lament the disappearance of whatever works in fresco Pietro del Borgo may have executed for Urbino, unless we attribute to him, on an already noticed lunette over the outer doorway of S. Francesco, at Mercatello, a beautiful half-length Marriage of St. Catherine. Of the small pictures, which he is said by Vasari to have painted for that court, one only remains; it is in the sacristy of the Urbino cathedral, and is a monument of great interest as regards the master and his patrons. On one side is the Flagellation of Christ before Pilate, in an open court enriched with a beautiful perspective of colonnades and architectural ornament. On the other is introduced a detached group of three figures in conversation, magnificently attired, who are generally called at Urbino the successive sovereigns Oddantonio, Federigo, and Guidobaldo I.; but their ages, compared with that of the painter, are irreconcileable with such a supposition. The AbbÉ Pungeleoni, in his Life of Sanzi, considers them to represent Count Guidantonio and his successors, Oddantonio and Federigo; or they may more probably be portraits of Oddantonio and the two evil counsellors who led him and themselves to destruction, as narrated in our third chapter.[151] In the graphic character and fine modelling of their features is displayed one of those peculiar excellences which Il Borghese was able, from his knowledge of perspective and light, to introduce into the practice of pictorial art, and which he is said to have carried out by making finished figures of clay, and draping them with various materials. This precious little picture is signed Opus Petri de Borgo Sci. Sepulcri, and we have already quoted it as illustrative of both his first and second manner. I have been so fortunate as to trace three more of the Urbino pictures of this master, hitherto unnoticed. At the devolution of the duchy to the Holy See, they found their way into the possession of Urban VIII., and now adorn the private apartment of his successor, Prince Barberini, at Rome, where they pass under the name of Mantegna. The first, a portrait of Duke Federigo and his son, has been already described. Having been executed about 1478, when Guidobaldo was five or six years old, and when the painter, according to Vasari, was above eighty, it would afford conclusive evidence against the hitherto received date of Pietro's birth.[152] The other two are companion pictures, and though hung too high, appear in excellent preservation. Both are architectural designs on panel, one representing the court of a palace, the other a basilicon-like interior, with elaborate plastic decorations and very clever perspective; a variety of figures are introduced, but the subjects are not known.[*153] To these, and still more to some of his earlier productions, may be applied the observation of Fra Castiglione, that "the works of Pietro, and those of his contemporary, Melozzo da ForlÌ, with their perspective effects and intricacies of art, are appreciated by connoisseurs rather than admired by the uninitiated."[*154]

The important influence of Pietro del Borgo upon Umbrian art is confirmed by Vasari, in naming among his scholars Perugino and Signorelli, the latter of whom worked at Urbino in 1484, and again, ten years later. But were our information as to his pupils more ample, we might probably find among them Melozzo da ForlÌ, to whom, and to other names connected with the duchy we shall return in our thirty-first chapter. Prominently among its painters, Lanzi has enumerated Bartolomeo Corradi, who became a predicant friar by the title of Fra Carnevale. Nothing is known of this talented limner beyond the fact that he combined his art with the duties of parish priest, at Castel Cavellino, and died soon after 1488. His best known work was executed for the great altar of S. Bernardino, near Urbino, as an ex voto commemoration of Federigo's piety on the birth of his son in 1472. In it the Duke's portrait, and those of several of his children, are said to be introduced. Indeed, there are not wanting old authorities who regard the Madonna and Child as likenesses of Countess Battista and her infant Guidobaldo. I receive with caution a conjecture which, repugnant to the ideas of Umbrian art at that period, would fasten a charge of profane naturalism upon one whom I should gladly consider as a purely Christian painter. Pungeleoni ascribes to him a small devotional picture preserved in the church of the Zoccolantines at Sinigaglia, in which two accessory figures probably represent the Prefect Giovanni della Rovere and his wife, the sister of Duke Guidobaldo I.; but their marriage only took place about the supposed time of this painter's death; and, at all events, had the AbbÉ ever seen it, he could not have mistaken it for a sketch of the altar-piece of S. Bernardino. The latter remains in the Brera, at Milan, among the unrestored French plunder; and I have sought in vain for other identified works of Carnevale in the duchy, although inclined to attribute to him more than one fine but nameless altar-picture which I have found there.[155]

Our description of Duke Federigo's palaces has made us acquainted with the name of Francesco di Giorgio, a painter and sculptor, as well as an architect and engineer. In the two former of these capacities he can be appreciated only in his native Siena, where two of his very rare pictures remain in the Belle Arti.[*156] His tendency to Umbrian feeling is obvious, and had Padre della Valle been acquainted with the productions of Fabriano and della Francesca, he would have detected in him a nearer approach to their manner than to that of Signorelli. But his fame depends on his numerous creations in architecture and fortification; whilst his inventions in military engineering were important additions to the art of war, as then conducted. Vasari's brief and blundering notice of him was supplemented by the researches of Padre della Valle, whose greedy patriotism maintained for him the merit of the Urbino palace, a claim of which we have formerly disposed.[157] Gaye, and the editor of the Florentine edition of Vasari {1838}, have added many new and interesting notices;[*158] but his name has of late received still more ample illustration at the hands of Carlo Promis, of Turin, by whom his life and principal writings have been edited, at the expense of the Chevalier Saluzzi. Francesco, son of Giorgio, son of Martino of Siena, was born in a humble rank about 1423; and, our earliest notice of his professional labours is in 1447, when we find he was one of the architects of the Orvieto cathedral. In 1447, we find him in Duke Federigo's service, which Promis supposes him to have entered shortly before; and there he appears to have remained until the death of that prince in 1482. The palace of Urbino having been already many years in progress, and not being mentioned by him, there is no reason to suppose he was much occupied upon it; and we find his own pen attesting the onerous duty imposed upon him by Federigo, as his military engineer. In July 1478 he was attached to the allied army, which the Duke commanded; and, in his autograph MS. speaks of having a hundred and thirty-six "edifices" on hand at once by his order. Among these, doubtless, there were many strongholds in the duchy; and he has left descriptive plans of Cagli, Sasso Feretro, Tavoletta, and Serra di S. Abondio. From various authorities cited by Promis, we may add, as probably of his construction, Castel Durante, S. Angelo in Vado, Orciano, S. Costanzo, S. Agata, Pietragutola, Montecirignone, S. Ippolito, Montalto, La Pergola, Cantiano, Fossombrone, Sassocorbaro, Mercatello, Costaccioro, Mondavio, and Mondolfo, besides numerous churches which he certainly planned for Federigo. The fortresses of Urbino have been estimated at nearly three hundred, a number which must seem at once superfluous and incredible, but for the entire change which the arts of war and defence were then undergoing, consequent on a general introduction of artillery.[*159] Federigo, perceiving the importance of strengthening his castles and citadels against

not only kept in active employment the most able engineer whom Italy then possessed, but, according to that artist's testimony, by his own experience and judicious suggestions, greatly facilitated the tasks which he imposed upon Francesco di Giorgio.

Nor was it his professional services alone which the Sienese artist placed at his patron's disposal. The documents published by Gaye and Promis show him accredited on various occasions as the Duke's envoy to the government of his native city; and his Liber de Architectura is dedicated to Federigo, at whose request, probably, it was composed. Vasari adds that he portrayed him both in painting and on a medal; and, in return perhaps for these diversified labours, that prince thus interceded for his admission into the magistracy of Siena.

"Mighty and potent Lords and beloved Brethren;

"I have here in my service Francesco di Giorgio, your fellow-citizen and my most favourite architect, who desires to be placed in your magnificent magistracy, as the ambition of his genius, excellence, prudence, and worth. I therefore pray your Highnesses that you will be pleased to elect him thereto, and to admit him into the number of your public men, which I shall regard as a special boon, as will be more fully stated to you on my behalf by your mighty ambassador. And your Lordships may be assured that were I not convinced that only good, faithful, and useful service is to be looked for from him, I should not propose him, nor intercede in his favour. And nothing more gratifying could I ever receive from your Lordships, to whom I offer and commend myself.

"From Durante, the 26th July, 1480.

"Federicus Dux Urbini ac Durantis Comes,
et Regius Capit. Gener., et S. Ro. Ecclesie Gonfalonierus."[160]